Field of Endeavor
The present application relates to microelectrodes and particularly to depositing bulk or micro-scale electrodes.
State of Technology
This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
A large number of microelectronic devices utilize electrodes to make electrical contact with their environment. In large-scale devices, these electrodes can be fabricated from bulk materials. There is a large push to miniaturize such devices using microelectronics and MEMS technologies. For these devices, electrodes are deposited using physical-vapor deposition, chemical-vapor deposition, or electro-chemical methods. For better performance of the microelectronic devices, it is often necessary to have a minimum electrode thickness, which is difficult to achieve reliably using conventional processes. Applicant has developed a system for attaching thicker electrodes on microelectronic (or large-scale) devices using thermo-compression bonding. This system permits reliable assembly of electrodes of various sizes. Additionally, this method reduces the number of fabrication steps (and potentially, cost) because the electrodes of desired shape and size are deposited, and hence require no further patterning or shaping.